The Fall
by Riddelly
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. John struggles with his demons for six months before coming to terms with the only way he can ever recover from Sherlock's loss, leaving the detective himself alone and tortured. S/J. Lots of angst and multiple character death.
1. Romeo

**A/N** _Happy Valentine's Day! So I thought I ought to post something for this special occasion, and what I end up with is a suicidal post-Reichenbach angst fic. Wonderful. I am actually very happy with this piece, though, so please review and tell me what you've thought. Also, keep in mind that there are some pretty heavy Doctor Who references in here, so if you don't watch it, just bear with me for that section. I can't help but think of John as a bit of a Whovian. Warnings for this fic include moderate to heavy swearing, suicide, depression, and mild homosexuality (but does a bit of Sherlock/John even count as such?). Enjoy, and, again, please do review! ***Edit 4/4/12: **Now a two-shot! Please review the next chapter! :3_

**Rated T **_for death and language_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

><p><strong>III**

**ROMEO**_  
><em>

The skull hasn't moved. It remains in place, shimmering with dust that its master never would have allowed on it in such quantities, where it's always been, always, excepting the brief time after my arrival when Mrs. Hudson removed it, confiscated it for a brief enough period—it had reappeared the next morning.

_Well, I say friend…_

Every thought in my head seems to set off his voice, like a burglar alarm, like a smoke alarm, like any sort of alarm, a plea for help that no one's going to give me, because there's no one _to _give it. No one, not really. I can't let a single thought dash through my mind that isn't linked to him, that doesn't carry him with it, a thick, foggy whisper of thin smirks and blue scarves and long coats and pale eyes, blue or grey or green depending on their mood and that of the lights illuminating them. His voice is so clear, fresh and stabbing, real and yet so, so imaginary every time his words flit through my brain.

_Mrs. Hudson took away my skull._

_I confiscate it._

_You can turn that off, now, John._

_I meant what I said, John._

_John, you are amazing, you are fantastic…_

John, John, John.

_Goodbye, John._

Why?

It's the only real question, the one that my mind insistently circles back to, time after time after time. Why? Why the hell would he do that? Was there not enough, was _I _not enough to keep him in place? It would seem that way.

_An apology… it's all true._

"No." I don't realize that I'm saying the word until it's in the air, and I hardly recognize it as my voice, it's so faint. Only makes sense… I haven't spoken in a while, I realize. Not since… when? The last time Mrs. Hudson checked on me, I suppose. Can't recall when that was. Can't really recall anything but those final moments, that glow all too clearly in my mind.

That's what I said then, too. _No._

_I want you to tell Lestrade… I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly… in fact, tell anyone who will listen that I created Moriarty, for my own purposes._

I don't know why the words are burned so vividly into my memory. Is it some kind of torture, some kind of punishment for a crime that I never realized I committed?

I didn't tell them, of course. Not Lestrade, not Mrs. Hudson, not Molly. None of them would have believed me, I don't think. None of them did believe Moriarty, as far as I know… not in the end. That was the public's view, but we _knew _him, we really knew him.

I really knew him.

I must have. I _must _have. _No one can fake being such an annoying dick all the time. _I wouldn't take that back now, not if I could, because it's damn true. I hated him sometimes. Most of the time, even. He was arrogant, he was obnoxious, he was a showoff and an insensitive jerk and an absolute asshole. He made every day a hardship, trying to drag through it after him, amending for his mistakes, treating him like my own child, when I needed to.

So why do I miss him so much?

_I'm angry._

I am angry. So angry. It makes sense, I suppose, for a selfish bastard, for him to end it in a way convenient only for himself. Were the things rooting him to life that weak? Did he really find it so… easy?

It certainly seems so.

_It's all true._

It can't be true. I can't let it be true.

If it's true, I've lost the only damn thing I have to hold onto in this fucked-up mess of a world.

But, come to think of it, even that's been gone for a while at this point.

* * *

><p>"You have to come back to work at some point, John. I don't want to pressure you, but… well… there are other people who might—who might, well, get sicker if they don't have a doctor. We're one short."<p>

She does want to pressure me. Of course she does. She hates me, or at least that's what I think sometimes. After our breakup, she's been… icy. _Breakup. _It's oddly disrupting to realize that Sarah and I really were dating at one point—that, in fact, I thought she might be the one. The one woman who would become Mrs. Watson. _Sarah Watson. _The name had run through my mind so many times, but something about it had always seemed… off. It was too plain, too ordinary of a label. There are hundreds of Sarah Watsons in the world. That would be me, then, joining the crowd of Johns married to Sarahs. A normal man living in London. Leaving the flat. Leaving my life behind.

I never imagined that it would be stolen before I even got a chance to truly appreciate its madness.

"Sarah…"

"I know you miss him. And I'm sorry. Believe me when—when I say that."

My eyes widen, fixed on the windowpane, and the phone feels cold in my hand. I don't know what to say. It sounds like she's actually choking up, but it's probably some sort of ploy to get me to come, a method of sliding guilt in under my senses.

"You hated him."

"I… he was a good man," she replies, her voice muffled. Suddenly, she's too far away. Her voice is too static-filled over the invisible phone line, and for the millionth time, the flat is too empty, the tables too bare without his science equipment. It's all neat—no, not neat. There's no organization to it, just… a lack of anything, anything that really matters.

"He was," I agree quietly, simply. "He was the best man I ever knew. There was never anyone else like him. There's never going to be. It's all gone. Wasted. He wasted it himself."

"John—"

"I'll be back next week." The words are dry in my mouth, like cotton or perhaps woodchips. Maybe the two combined. Gag-worthy. I'm not sure why I say them, just that I'm sick of her pestering me. My finger hits the button to end the call without really thinking and I turn around, not really directing my gaze. It falls upon the door to the stairs, the one that Lestrade came bounding through the very first day I moved in. That night… after Sherlock left in the taxi cab… the recollection of his triumphant, excited jump at the news of the fourth suicide sends a tremor of agony down my spine.

_And someday, if we're very, very lucky, he might even be a good one._

Someday, huh, Greg?

That night is suddenly filling me, echoes and fragments. Seeing his back, his silhouette through the college windows. Seeing the pills, vivid, horrific pink speckles scattered in the clean whiteness.

Knowing what was going to happen.

_Sherlock!_

I was able to stop it that time. The very beginning… it had all started with him about to kill himself. I prevented it, that time. I killed a man for him. It was very vivid in my mind—just the burning knowledge that I couldn't lose him, not so soon.

Eighteen months later.

_Nope. No—Sherlock!_

Again.

Nothing to do that time.

_Goodbye, John._

His face, so pale, scarlet lines spidering across it like cracks in a perfect, snowy mask. A shattered identity. Broken. Irretrievable.

Something's blocking my throat, all of a sudden, and a furious stab hits me right between the eyes, so that I grimace and double over, a hand raised to my forehead, stumbling sideways to the couch, the action marred by the limp that I'd thought left me for good. I find myself slumping onto the leather, welcoming its softness, as everything's washed away from my brain, leaving just the ferocious white light of a migraine. His eyes are there, too, empty, so empty that not even ghosts haunt them. My eyes hurt like hell. I hiss in through my teeth, trying to orient myself, clinging onto my own arms, a firm grip, since there's nothing else to reach for anymore.

* * *

><p>The first time I text him, I'm not actually thinking. I don't even consider the fact that his number isn't going to be reachable. I just pull out my phone, scroll down to his name, hit it, and I'm typing before it can cross my mind that I'm acting completely insane.<p>

_Why did you do it?_

I don't sign the inquiry, just hit _send._

The phone drops to my side, and I tilt my head backwards, sighing slowly, letting my eyes drift shut. _Why. Why did you? I could have helped, you know. We were going to do it, Sherlock. You and I… we were going to bring Moriarty down together. Kill Rich Brook and bring back Jim Moriarty, remember? Don't you remember? You have to remember._

The unobtrusive beep of a text alert.

It's like there's no delay time at all—just out of nowhere, my palms are sweating, I can't move fast enough. My eyes are swimming in and out of focus, and my breath has accelerated to what must be a million miles an hour. Christ. There's no way. I'm letting myself get out of hand.

But I can see it—it _is _from him, dear God, I have to be dreaming, this isn't possible—

Words jump out at me, clearly outlined against the blur that's the solid block of text.

_May have been temporarily… disconnected…_

_This line…_

_Disconnected…_

I should have known.

It's at times like this that the tears really come, when there's nothing reasonable to provoke them at all, nothing but hope. Maybe that's how these things work. It's not the actual misery that hurts so bad.

It's the brief, weak idea that there might be some happiness left in the world.

Why can't I accept that it's truly over?

* * *

><p>"Rose Tyler, I…"<p>

I'm sobbing. Jesus Christ, I'm sobbing. Actual, real sobs, so that it feels like my lungs are on fire, and I can't see through my tears, can't make out David Tennant and Billie Piper. I've seen this before, seen this episode, so many times it's surely in the double digits. Hell, I probably have it memorized. It's a sweet moment for any Doctor Who fan, and a rather heartbreaking one.

_Heartbreaking._

What a pathetic word.

Heart-_shattering, _heart-disintegrating, heart-destroying, heart-evaporating. Doctor Who. Sherlock never watched it with me. Thought it was stupid. It is stupid. So stupid. I love it so goddamn much.

Something in me twists, threatens to rip itself apart entirely. It's odd to realize that there's anything not already in tatters.

The Doctor and Rose Tyler. A classic love story. A sweet, silly, shallow and yet endlessly _real _love story. And this isn't it—"Doomsday," this isn't the final episode with the Cockney-accented blonde in it. My hands are already moving, somehow I'm gasping, working through the tears streaming down my face, shakily sliding in a DVD of Season 4, "Turn Left." It's only a few minutes in, huddled in a blanket with the Union Jack pillow clutched to my lap, that I realize that the Doctor dies in this episode.

Rose doesn't seem upset. She doesn't so much as shed a tear. She just says it's wrong. Blankly, to Donna. How it wasn't supposed to turn out this way.

Then she disappears again.

The episode ends, but I'm not done, because I've seen the expression on the Doctor's face, that wild, terrified hope that comes with _Bad Wolf. _Next one, "The Stolen Earth." Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister. She dies. Nobody cares, not really. The Doctor is shot by a Dalek. Rose is crying. He says he's regenerating; it's a lie. Even the audience knew that. Next episode. "Journey's End." Davros. The Daleks. Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones. Mickey, Martha, Jackie Tyler. Then it's ending already. Rose gets her own Doctor, a copy, she's kissing him now.

The unidentified something in my stomach twists harder.

And then back to the Doctor. Everyone's leaving him, all of his pretty companions, and he's alone again. He's always alone. Always so alone. The credits end and the flat goes dark, the last note of the electric theme tune still buzzing in my mind. Silence is pressing in from all sides. I glance down at my watch, squint through the blackness, see that it's well past midnight. I can't go to bed, though, because bed is more nothingness. The tears caused from Rose's departure nearly three hours ago are dry and sticky on my cheeks, holding my eyelashes together, and my face feels hot. I'll be exhausted in the morning, but that doesn't matter. My hands move aimlessly through my stack of box sets, searching for a season finale that _doesn't _end in the Doctor being alone. Season 5, Matt Smith, "The Big Bang." It's playing now, and I try to focus on it, but something's off. It's the Eleventh Doctor. He's worse than the Tenth.

He's more like Sherlock.

The dark hair, the cheekbones, the pale skin. The brilliant, enthusiastic madness. He's so inhuman—the opposite of the consulting detective in some ways, and yet there's something about him… I think that I told Sherlock at some point that he was like the Doctor. I can't remember his reaction, not exactly, but I'm sure it involved scoffing, eye-rolling. _Please don't associate me with an overacted extraterrestrial from a cliché science fiction series, John. _Something like that.

It's 2:37. My eyes are burning with exhaustion.

Silence and darkness wait for me upstairs.

I put in the first disc of Season 6.

* * *

><p>"John… I'm sorry."<p>

My sister's voice doesn't belong to her. It's actually gentle instead of brash and callous, almost genuinely sorrowful though she never even met Sherlock. She has no reason to mourn. She's lucky.

"No, you're not," I mutter. I'm staring straight at her image on my computer screen, knowing that my gaze is off from her end. She's gazing directly at the webcam, though, so that it feels rather like she can actually see me, and not some pixelated image. Her eyes are darker than mine, more hazel, less blue. She looks bad, too—definitely not off the booze, as Sherlock most definitely would've been kind enough to point out.

"You're not yourself when you're sad."

"Yes. I am. This is me, Harry. Right here. This is what I am. This is what he's turned me into. You should hate him more than you already do. Don't be sad. God knows that I'm miserable enough for both of us."

She hesitates for a second, biting her lip in a characteristic nervous trait that she's possessed since childhood. "Did you—ever consider that, well, you know… to be this, well, wrecked… I think he might have been more than a friend to you, John," she finally gets out, rushing the words but keeping a determined glint in her eye. "And I know you don't like to think about it that way, but—"

"It was never like that," I sigh, faint exasperation filling the gap in my chest in an empty way, like a mist, a transparent fog. "We were close, but not like that, alright?"

"John… all your life you've been attracted to women, I know that, but _please _think for a second—"

"No."

I don't want to think. I've had too much time to think, far too much, and I'm done with it. I'm done thinking. Thinking just hurts. I know that now.

People say that deaths grow less painful after a while. I guess that they just learn to block things out somehow, because there's no way in hell that this has been improving. And now Harry's words are like ripping the wound open all over again, because I realize that I don't even know whether or not the denial coming out of my mouth is true.

I have no idea what he was to me.

Now I never will.

* * *

><p><em>I miss you.<em>

_I wish that we could have had a little longer. Or maybe a lifetime longer._

_It's empty without you._

The texts are becoming more and more frequent, and I've almost forgotten that they actually cost me money. It doesn't matter. Money doesn't matter at all. Going to work has been an off-and-on thing for me, and lots of the clothes I wear are a couple of years old, or at the very least bought secondhand. I think Mrs. Hudson is lowering the rent—something on the bills seems off, but I can't quite put a finger on it. Maybe I'm losing my mind. It does seem harder to focus on things, and I've noticed the looks that people send my way.

They're afraid of me, in a way. Intimidated by my loneliness. I can't understand why humans are made to function that way. Shouldn't it be the opposite? Shouldn't my predicament invite sympathy? Apparently not. Others—others who are happy, content, even, like I used to be—they don't want to poison themselves with my imperfection.

_The hit counter on the blog is fixed. It just sort of happened one day. No one visits it anymore, though. I guess we were just a passing fad._

_No one remembers you anymore, Sherlock._

I always get the same response, of course. Just those few lines, telling me that his number has been disconnected. It doesn't exist anymore, just like him. He went out without resolving himself—now everyone believes he was a fake, even Harry, though she denies it. Even Sarah. Even Mike Stamford and Bill Murray, even Donovan and Anderson and Lestrade. More like _of course _Donovan and Anderson and Lestrade.

Mycroft and I haven't spoken since it happened. It was his fault, in the end, for giving Moriarty access to Sherlock's childhood. I hate the bastard. He deserved his brother's fate. He still does.

_I still believe in you. I never stopped._

I check every time that I get a return text, even though I know what it's going to be. There's some hope inside of me, somehow. It just refuses to leave. I wish that I could get rid of it, throw it all out into the dark, watch it get run over by cars and cabs, dissolve into the smoky fog of London and vanish like an unheard whisper in the emotionless night.

* * *

><p>"Did you doubt him, Greg?"<p>

It's a stupid question, but it had to be asked. This morning, I woke up with it flaming in my mind, insistent. I rode a cab to Scotland Yard just to get the answer in person, to be able to see the Detective Inspector's eyes as he spoke it, tell if he was lying or not. Sherlock's taught me how to detect a lie. I'll never be as brilliant at it as him, though.

"John…" His face is dark, pained, like a kicked puppy, and I can tell that he's been trying to block the whole thing from his mind. Trying to block the memory of Sherlock. It's been two months; I don't blame him. It's not leaving me, though. I'm plagued by it every single second of the day, and I don't want to be alone in that.

"Tell me. In the end… did you think he was a fraud? And don't just say yes or no, really _think _about it. Please." My knuckles are white, gripping the edge of his desk far too hard. He takes a slow breath, raises a hand and massages his temples.

"I don't know, John. I want to think he was real—what can I say, he was a brilliant bloke, when you really got down to it—but I don't see why he would have—you know… if not because he'd been exposed."

"Killed himself, you mean." My voice is stone cold. "Took a fucking plunge off the bloody roof, didn't he?"

"John—"

"It was Moriarty. I don't know how, but I swear to God that it was Moriarty who made him do it. Sherlock would never commit suicide. Never. And he wasn't fake. I _knew _him, I know I did. I knew him better than anyone."

"We all thought we did."

"No. You didn't. You were his coworker. That was it. He never cared about you. Not really." I don't know why I'm saying this, but I think I want to cause him pain. Punish him for daring to not believe, to not believe in the most real, wonderful, fantastic man ever to walk the earth.

"It's your fault." I say it with ice in my words as well as my intentions, and I can see each syllable strike him with almost physical pain. His mouth drops open in a mix of indignation and guilt, but I don't give him time to speak, just spit my own thoughts out. "People like you. He _trusted _you, but you betrayed him, you turned on him. It's all because of people like you that Moriarty was able to do something like this. If you'd believed in him… why couldn't you? Why couldn't you just hold onto the word of a man who has probably saved your life countless times? I… I know he has mine." My composure slips, just for an instant, but I don't allow it to last longer than that. "You're the worst of them all. You were his friend, Lestrade. And you bloody arrested him. You started this all. You."

I try to make it out the door before the tears come—angry tears, not sad ones—but I can tell by Sally Donovan's tight-jawed expression that I fail.

* * *

><p>I'm facing the Thames, standing on a dirty beach, slowly breathing in the scentless breeze that wafts from the crests of the small waves. It's fresh, pleasant, even though I know that the river is truly filled with the most putrid of things. My hair is ruffled, just slightly, and I'm cool but not overly chilled.<p>

Long fingers wrap themselves around my wrist.

I want to clutch back at them, but I'm too afraid that they'll dissolve if I attempt to do so. The temptation to turn around, to face him, is nearly overpowering, but I manage to hold back, focusing instead on the blurred outlines of birds soaring over the water. His touch is so light, so tender, absolutely perfect and yet nowhere near enough. It's like a drug—a tiny taste is exquisite, and though I know that more will do nothing but poison me, I can't help but desire it with all of my being.

I turn, look at him.

His face is cracked. Divided into thousands of little shards by infinite, crisscrossing branches and threads of blood—I know it's blood, even though it's blacker than pitch. His eyes are blank, staring, not the beautiful silver-green that I remember but instead a flat rock-grey, completely dead. I'm revolted, terrified, and yet somehow enraptured, because this is the most vivid I've seen him since it happened. His eyelashes, his hairline, the curve of his jaw—they're all crusted and matted with gore, and yet it's the precise profile of his face, and I have no choice but to gaze at it in trapped, horrified wonder.

His stained lips part, like they're trying to voice my name, but no sound comes out. Instead, a great chunk of flesh slowly peels off of his cheek, leaving half of a skeletal leer behind. Everything's fading into stark black and white, shaky pencil lines, like eerie illustrations from a book of ghost stories. He's decaying before me, and I can't feel his hand on mine anymore, can only see him collapsing, folding in on himself, becoming a pile of dust that, instants later, is nothing.

I'm falling, onto the ground, screaming for him over and over, pleading that he come back, cracked and destroyed as he was.

"Sherlock! Oh, God, Sherlock, please, _please… _please come back!"

When I wake up, I'm frozen. The sweat-stained sheets bunched around me provide no warmth. I'm shaking, shaking harder than I ever have in my life, and I turn around, twisting onto my side, reaching out for a pillow and pulling it to myself, pressing my face into it and filling it with disgusting, wretched sobs.

It's the sixty-fourth night like this.

I never even realized I was counting.

* * *

><p>I don't know how long it's been since I've looked at myself in the mirror, but it's amazing how much of a wreck I am. John Watson, ex-army doctor.<p>

Bloody pathetic.

My hair is overgrown, stubble from where I haven't shaved for a few days, greasy blonde strands hanging in my eyes and purplish shadows underlying them. My eyes themselves—they're wide, too wide, and still, as though I'm trying to have a staring contest with myself. _First one to blink gives a shit about the world. _I could probably hold out on that one forever, if I had to. I watch my own disgusting face as intensely as possible, until moisture begins to well up in my eyes and I'm forced to squeeze them shut. The darkness is never a relief. Just gives me an opportunity to see him again, more clearly. The last thing I need.

I look mad. Poor. Unwanted. Like a schizophrenic beggar on the streets.

I can't remember the last time I shaved, took a shower, went out to get the groceries. I have a vague idea that Mrs. Hudson's been doing most of the shopping for me. I've never thanked her. Never spoken to her. Never spoken to anyone, for at least a week now. I wonder if I can still speak.

I try, and the thing to come out is his name.

"Sherlock."

It's weak. Too weak, dry, cracked, almost squeaking. A sad excuse, a voice not worthy of those two wonderful syllables.

He's all I can think about.

Obsessed.

Deranged.

It hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse. He's changed in my mind, become some sort of angel, an infinitely good thing that he never was in reality, and for God's sake, I can't get it out of my head just how damn beautiful his eyes were.

Four months, now. He's rotted away by now. Those eyes are gone, for good.

Like they weren't already.

I wonder if Harry was right, sometimes. If all of them were right. About us. I'm not attracted to men as a gender, never have been. I'm positive of that much, absolutely positive.

I'm also positive that I loved Sherlock Holmes more than any other man or woman I've ever known, or ever will know.

My head falls forward, hits the mirror with such force that a resounding crack rings through the air, though the splintered shards don't fall out of the frame, don't cut me. My eyes are closed, hiding from myself. Something warm runs down my chin.

Maybe I'm crying again, or maybe the broken glass did do damage after all.

I can't tell the difference anymore.

* * *

><p>I'm on the rooftop, and everything's clear again.<p>

I can't quite recall how I got here—in fact, everything's muddled, really, everything since last time, that last instant when I stood across the street from here, phone in my hand, watching him. It's like the past six months never existed, like I jumped somehow from then to now. It's a few paces to the edge, and I close them eagerly, raising myself onto the very edge in an almost bouncy fashion despite my heavier-than-ever limp. I haven't felt this confident in ages.

This is it.

Time for the end.

My hand slips into my pocket, pulls out my mobile phone. The scratched casing, part of what led Sherlock to deduce that I had a drunkard for a sister, glints in the unfairly bright sunlight. It gets in my eyes, and I squint, adjusting the angle so that I can see it clearly.

There we go.

He called me. The best I can do is text him.

So I do, my hands shaking slightly—select his name from my list of contacts like I have so many times over the last two years now. Eighteen months with, six without. I've learned that it doesn't get any better.

I've thought a lot about everything I could say to him. All the apologies, the wishes, the regrets, the hopes. But none of them really matter. None of them express the single thing that's clearest in my mind right now, that burns with the utmost intensity. The letters flow out from under my fingers, very slow and yet entirely steady.

_I'm sorry. I love you. –JW_

That's all it needs. I'm ready. With a long, final inhalation, I grip the phone as tightly as I can, letting my arms extend—just lifting lightly, as though I'm going to take a draft of wind and carry myself away from all this.

Which I am.

My stomach clenches as I fall, but it's a reflex, it means nothing, because I'm not regretting this, not at all. There's wind in my hair, all around me, and I feel so _alive, _so absolutely exhilarated. This is it. Right here, right now. I've made my decision.

_I'm joining you, Sher—_

* * *

><p><em>The body of Dr. John Watson, 38, was found at the sidewalk outside of St Bartholomew's Hospital this morning. It's apparent that his death was an intentional one, quite possibly connected to that of his former flatmate, Sherlock Holmes, who committed suicide in the exact same manner six months ago.<em>

_Dr. Watson will be missed by his friends and the medical community alike, both of which he was immensely valuable to._

_Though his specific confidant is unknown, it appears that he did tell at least one other of his intentions, for his miraculously unbroken mobile phone (held in the body's hand) received a text message moments after he hit the ground, according to bystanders. The contact, listed under the name Sherlock Holmes (though, of course, it's impossible that it could have been his late associate), had sent him a single cryptic word: "WAIT."_


	2. Juliet

**A/N** _I suppose I just wasn't happy with the ending to that other one. There was so much potential for even more lovely angst... XD So have a sequel-ish thing that came out of nowhere. :D This is meant to be similar in structure to the original piece, by the way, just to emphasize how Sherlock and John are really two sides of the same coin. :3 Please review! Sherlock's POV this time around, if that wasn't obvious._

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

><p><strong>IIII**

**JULIET**

He jumps, and everything shatters.

I don't process it at first. It's a backwards analysis, a desperate, pathetic scramble for escape that floods my mind, something that, were I thinking clearer, I'd probably be able to identify as _denial. _But the very concept of clear thinking is a joke—I can't recall ever in my life being more frozen, more useless as I stare at the small, bright screen in front of me, the time and date blinking in the right corner, numbers that I know will be burned into my mind forever, but that I can't quite manage to process right now. Everything escalates for the few seconds that he's suspended in the air—he's still _alive, _right now, in this moment, and if I have a way, some insane way to pause time, I can fix it, hold him there, cling onto the blazingly bright presence of life and refuse to let it slip away. There's still hope—never mind if it's impossible, illogical, fantastical, because it's there, because, if only for one more moment, we're both alive.

I can almost hear the thud as he hits the pavement.

And then, suddenly, I can't breathe anymore. My head throbs violently, and the image before me seems to burn black and white, sepia, and then too bright, far too bright with the horribly violent display of scarlet that's spreading over the pavement, the pavement where I lay six months ago, tricking him, saving him—an action that, quite suddenly, has been rendered entirely useless. I might as well have let John be shot for all the good I did—it would have been better, in fact. I know at least that he would have been happier if things had ended quickly, thoughtlessly for him. But now such a thing is useless to even imagine, because I can't reverse the reality of having watched him struggle, spiral into depression and near-insanity for half a year before… before this.

I hate my own mind, absolutely detest it for this unspeakable crime: that it can keep on working, its gears kicking up and resuming their well-oiled spin mere moments after the world collapsed in on itself. It should be petrified—if the stupid damn planet won't stop turning, then at least my own consciousness should, at least I should be _upset,_because I deserve upset, I deserve all the upset that I could never so much as dream up and a thousand years of agony beyond that. For letting this happen. For letting my_flawless _plan leave such a massive hole torn through it.

And yet I'm still functioning. Calmly, evenly, I look down at the phone lying in my palm—an almost surprising sight; I'd nearly forgotten about its presence there. Slowly, I press the center button, bringing the tiny screen to life, watching as it illuminates a text that I don't remember sending, the four letters—all capital—burningly black against the white background.

_WAIT, _it says.

A last effort, a final attempt to stop the thing that I had inevitably set up. I killed him. Me and my actions were inarguably responsible for his death, and all I could do to try and stop it was send him one last text message.

Back on the CCTV screen, people are beginning to flock around the body that's suddenly the opposite of familiar, just another corpse, one of the so many I've had all too much experience with. Some crying out though I can hear nothing, one shaking his shoulder, several others just staring in horror. Like the ones around me had… but they had been setups, actors, their only job had been to hold him back, so that he couldn't find out the truth.

There's no question to the truth this time. The tiny bit of denial that I had allowed myself to be taken captive by has slipped away. The fact is right in front of me: it is over. It is absolutely and completely over, and I can't change that.

I lean back into the swivel chair that I'm sitting in, staring penetratingly at the nightmare of a sight as though I can smother it, suffocate it into nonexistence, kill his death and bring him back.

_Death. _Such a stabbing, brutal, final word.

I wonder if he ever had any of these thoughts, back when he saw me fall, all those months ago. Perhaps he went through exactly what I am, now. Perhaps worse. I can imagine that it might have been worse. I'm not in that much pain, not really. This isn't numbness. Numbness is insulating, a cunningly warm blanket of false reassurances. But there's nothing warm about me right now. Not warm, and not burning, either, not agonized.

I'm ice-cold instead.

* * *

><p>"Do you want to talk about it?"<p>

I lean back into my stiff wooden chair, letting out a long, irritated sigh as my eyes shift upwards, fixate on the towering, curved ceiling of my brother's mansion, my home for the past six months. He sits across from me, elbows on the table, his chin resting on his contemplatively folded hands. I let my silence do the answering for me, feeling his eyes on me and not caring a bit. Three hours, sixteen minutes, and forty-two seconds since he jumped. I don't try to keep count, but it's another frustratingly automatic function of my brain that I can't seem to turn off.

"He meant a lot to you, Sherlock. I'd imagine that you'd be… upset, now. And if you need to talk to someone, I will listen."

"I deserve to be the one who died," I explain clearly, mildly pleased at how normal my voice sounds, low and steady. "He shouldn't have had to do that. He was a better person than me. He always has been."

"Sherlock."

"Then again, I suppose the dead one gets the best deal. Him deciding to head out certainly leaves me in a bit of a fix."

"Sherlock."

"Had it coming, didn't I? All along, really. Should have realized how idiotic it was to not go back to him as soon as Moran was dead… I did it to be safe, remember? To make sure that there weren't any more of them out there. Any more waiting for him. Look how safe he ended up."

"Sherlock."

"_What?_" I straighten up finally, glaring at him. His face is carefully blank—he's not affected by John's death, he cares even less than I do. "If you're just going to sit there repeating my name a thousand times over, I don't have and reason to stay here."

His mouth half-opens for a moment, then settles closed again. My eyes flit up and down his figure, trying to discern if he has any intentions of speaking. It would be easy enough to read on any other person, but Mycroft is rather remarkable at concealing his thoughts from me. I allow him ten brief seconds, and when he doesn't make another move, I stand up abruptly, pushing the chair in harshly so that it screeches on the marble floor. He squeezes his eyes shut in protest to the noise, but I don't apologize, don't acknowledge his frustration. Instead, I turn around and stalk off, without any intention of going anywhere.

* * *

><p>It's laughable that he expects me to eat. Enough so that I might even allow it a genuine snort of amusement, if not for the fact that such an action feels ridiculously absurd at the present. Happiness is foreign. I can't quite remember what it's like to be happy, because my only experience with such a thing always involved John, and John's absence now seems to have torn the atmosphere of the memories with it. Recollecting times with him is like reading a colleague's biography. The events echo some reflection of an emotion, but can't quite manage to link back to the real thing.<p>

Hunger is almost as difficult to imagine as happiness. The thought of food isn't necessarily repulsive, but it does manage to carry an unappealing air to it—my body feels fine how it is, a pleasantly hollow state, and I don't want to set that off-balance with something like the tray containing some sort of sandwich that Mycroft has had sent to my room. I can imagine his voice—_if you don't eat now, it will start up a habit. Neither of us can afford you to starve. There's nothing that you need your mind to be sharp for, Sherlock. On the contrary, I daresay you'd be pleased to slow your thoughts down a bit right now. Go on, eat the food._

_I don't want to. _That's the best answer I can summon, the most truthful one. And I _don't _want to, I want anything but. I'm lying on the wide frame of the four-poster bed in the room that's been assigned to me, fingers steepled in front of me, letting my mind wander. However, my thoughts can't start down as loose a track as usual—instead, they're tied to John, like he's a solid iron post that I'm chained to, unable to wander more than a few yards from. He's somehow managed to integrate him into every bit of my life, every side of my mind, and that previously sweet flavoring to my thoughts has suddenly become poison.

_Damn you, John. Damn you for somehow managing to become everything to me._

It's only early afternoon, too early to sleep, especially for me, but I'm tired, somehow. So I stand, pace over to the tall windows lining the room and draw the curtains shut on each of them, one at a time, slow and steady. The drapes are a deep, rich color that's suspended between black and maroon, and every time I tug one closed, a new cloud of dust is released into the air. My nose tickles vaguely, but I don't sneeze, just continue to block out all the light, up and down the room, until it's cast completely into darkness. I perch on the edge of my bed again, fingers wandering vaguely along the thick comforter, tracing its stitches. The exhaustion has left me, the syrupy lack of light seeming to stimulate my brain rather than calm it. My thoughts gain energy, spinning wildly, darting back and forth across the surface of my conscious thought, until a slow ache begins to tug at them, growing into a splitting sensation that shoots down my forehead.

It's like I'm restraining something, but I can't imagine what.

* * *

><p>Hours later, the sky has deepened its shade appropriately, so that the curtains are no longer necessary. I keep them pulled tight anyways, not wanting a single bit of starlight to come into the room. Thoughts of John have been stewing over the time I've spent locked in my room, and now they're literally all that's left in my mind, so that my mind can't so much as function properly.<p>

_My fault._

Even I'm not feeling any _sadness, _the guilt is still there, the waste, the… despair, of a sort. He was such an amazing, brilliant man, and now he's gone. The world is a million times blacker without Dr. John Watson to light it. I'd never have thought before meeting him that the absence of a single, insignificant man could destroy me so utterly and thoroughly. I'm broken, really—empty. And yet not _sad. _Not miserable. I've made a massive mistake, I've played out my cards wrong, I've lost my most valuable piece in the game of life—my _only _piece, really. I can't quite adjust to the fact that there's nothing to return to, anymore. Everything I've done has been for him. And now it's wasted.

Everything has gone to _waste._

I've envisioned going back to him so many times, imagining the look on his face—I'd considered the fact that he might hit me, might be angry. At first, the concept was painful, but I grew used to it, decided that I'd deserve whatever he might have in mind for me. Or perhaps he'd faint, succumb to shock—that was the most natural of reactions provoked by seeing a dead man appear on your doorstep, standing and breathing.

I hadn't dared to let myself truly imagine the idea of him being _happy _to see me. That would be setting my expectations too high, and I didn't want to have to let them fall again.

_Fall, fall, fall._

It's useless now, in any case, because he's dead. Because my mistakes killed him.

John is _dead._

It hits me in the chest, as solidly as any punch, and I freeze, my form completely still on the bed, stiff as though I was the corpse and not him.

He's dead.

I've somehow managed to hold true acknowledgement of such a fact at bay thus far, but now that I've made the mistake of allowing it in, it consumes me, overtakes me in a huge flood, and all me is hurting, hurting so much worse than I would have imagined possible. There's the most bizarre physical _pain _in my chest, gripping my heart and lungs and twisting them until I can't breathe. Chills inch down my body, and I feel myself shaking, but I'm disconnected from it, hidden in the depths of my own mind. I stay like that as the minutes creep by, drowning, waiting desperately for the end of the agony to come.

But it doesn't. And I suddenly realize that it never will.

* * *

><p>Not a single shadow of sleep has come anywhere near touching me by the time morning dawns. I can see the sickly, syrupy puddles of yellow light forming around the base of the floor-length curtains, illuminating a thin blizzard of dust motes that twist and dance despite the lack of anything resembling breeze. I envy their ignorance, their unknowing. My insides still feel as though they're imprisoned in a fierce steel grip, and my breaths come out shallowly, so as not to aggravate the stinging pain any further. If I stay like this, on the bed, not eating or drinking, everything will go away eventually, fade into nothingness. I think that's my plan, in a way, my subconscious last resort.<p>

John's face flashes far too clearly before me, and I stare hard at the ceiling above me, focusing on the darkness until it manages to erase the reflection of his short blonde hair and hazel-blue eyes.

My phone beeps from the bedside table. I reach over and lift it, grateful for a distraction to focus my immediate thoughts on, and hold it a ways away from my face, squinting to focus on the letters. I try to ignore the pale, emaciated forearm in my peripheral vision, instead letting the phone's screen consume my attention.

_Have you eaten or slept?_

I deem to ignore the prying inquiry from my brother. It's apparent that Mycroft sees no need to sign it, which makes sense—after all, there's no one else who could be texting me…

Except for John. John used to—I was worried when he first began doing so, thinking that perhaps he'd cracked, but Mycroft's cameras in 221b proved otherwise. He was as sane as he'd ever been since I'd jumped—which is to say, not very. Without wanting to, I find myself clicking to them now, that long list of messages, scrolling through them and answering each of them in my head.

_Why did you do it? –JW_

_To save you. I never killed myself, John. It was an act. And I was going to tell you that, eventually._

_I miss you. –JW_

_God, I miss you, too. I miss you so much. I'm sorry… I can never begin to express how sorry I am. I let you do this… I just want you back. More than anything._

_I wish we could have had a little longer. Or maybe a lifetime longer. –JW_

_I would love that. A lifetime, for the two of us, solving crimes in the flat. I would be happy with that, John, to just have my work and have you. That's all I could possibly ask for. Far less than some people would demand for a satisfactory life. Why does have a simple wish have to be so impossible?_

_It's empty without you. –JW_

_If only you could see how many empty rooms there are in Mycroft's house. They're all full of dust and relics. It never bothered me before you were gone permanently. Now I can't imagine anything lonelier._

_The hit counter on the blog is fixed. It just sort of happened one day. No one visits it anymore, though. I guess we were just a passing fad. –JW_

_Good. I hated the popularity._

_No one remembers you anymore, Sherlock. –JW_

_It's meant to be that way, John. That's what I always intended._

And, of course, the last one, that causes me to throw the phone across the room, the one that I can't possibly deal with right now because it has too much tied to it, too many memories, too many… emotions.

_I'm sorry. I love you. –JW_

* * *

><p>I don't know what motivates me to look at the blog. I haven't for ages, not since the very first few cases were published on it. I didn't see any purpose to doing so, after all—they were only details of my own ventures, which I'd already experienced. No need to clog up my memories with John's badly written, crime-novel style retellings. I'd only pop up occasionally to leave him an impulsive comment, usually when he was out of town, when I missed him.<p>

I always knew he'd come back, then. I'd lie on the couch and try to imagine that he wasn't gone, look forward to when he'd return. That feels like a different lifetime now, before I became trapped in this cave-like mansion for all of the foreseeable future, my only companion being the constant ache in my head and chest. An ache that's only going to be intensified by reading his old posts, but for some reason I can't help it.

It's a terrible mistake, because the first thing I see is his name, big white font across the generic green background—_John H Watson, _large, mocking, words under which dates belong now. _1976-2012._

The second thing is his face.

It's not even a particularly good photograph, small, black-and-white, but it's still _his _face, his stupid, grinning face, his eyes and his mouth and his _everything _and it tears at me for some reason, to see that tiny, pathetically preserved bit of him, to know that his body looks nothing like that now, not after a week, know that it's falling apart at this point, coming undone, cracks splintering off from the place where I broke him.

I can't do this. Can't bear to stare at him, to read the words that my brain's already processed without my permission—_I am an experienced medical doctor recently invalided from Afghanistan—_or, even worse, to see the glaring title of the latest post, the final post that must be the last thing he could bring himself to write.

Untitled.

_He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him._

That's it, that's all that there is. A video is underneath it, one that I recognize without having to click it—it's a news report, that's all, a news report on my death. I've seen it before, laughed at it, even, at the reporters' idiocy… I never imagined John having to see such a thing on the television every time he turned it on, for the first week or so, at least.

There are lots of things that I never imagined he'd go through.

_He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him._

Something's building up in my throat, and I cough loudly to clear it, a sound that comes out too-deep and overly strangled. An odd sort of clenching tingle sets in around my eyes, but I refuse to think about what it could possibly be, instead choosing to scroll down, look over all the ridiculous titles that he assigned his reports of our cases.

_The Speckled Blonde._

_The Geek Interpreter._

_The Great Game._

_The Blind Banker._

And, of course, that first one, the very first, where it all began…

_A Study in Pink._

_When I first met Sherlock, he told me my life story. He could tell so much about me from my limp, my tan and my mobile phone. And that's the thing with him. It's no use trying to hide what you are because Sherlock sees right through everyone and everything in seconds. What's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things._

I slam the laptop lid down as harshly as possible, a gasp drawing its way out of my throat. My shaking arms fold together on top of it and I slowly lower my head down, pressing my forehead to the hot plastic and squeezing my eyes shut, stomach writhing and fingernails digging into my forearms hard enough to draw blood, a desperate attempt to root myself with physical pain, anything to detract from the gaping sickness wrenching inside of me.

* * *

><p>The day is mockingly sunny, and the heat beats down on my coat, sinking through the dark fabric and burning my skin underneath. Despite it being an absurdly warm spring day, I never so much as considered wearing lighter clothes. These were my mourning garments, one could say. I never wore anything else when I went out with John, so it's only logical that I should don them for my final moment with him.<p>

It's a horribly plain grave marker, about two feet high, dismally rectangular, and made of pale marbled stone that catches the light, washing it in subtle glitters. It's pretty, I suppose, but I can hardly appreciate something like that. His name is carved onto it, the letters standing out clearly against their pale backdrop. _John H Watson. _Always that middle initial, for no apparent reason. I stare hard at it, eyebrows lowering over my icy glare, paying no mind to the warm, damp breeze gusting in front of me, pulling slightly at my scarf.

Mycroft would undoubtedly think it unwise of me to come here, but I truly don't think it's possible for me to care less. Anyone who recognized me in public would mistake me for a trick of the light, a ghost, even. People will believe all matter of things before the truth, especially when the truth is fighting to conceal itself from them, which I certainly am. To the public, I'm still dead. And my gravestone is in here, too—just next to John's, in fact, though I don't give it so much as a glance. The earth underneath it holds an empty coffin. Whereas that below John's…

My stomach twists at the thought, and a tiny, whimper-like noise tears itself out of my mouth unwillingly. I grit my teeth, pulling my lips back and trying to keep my jaw steady. My hands wrap themselves into fists, and I let the headstone burn its image into my mind—it's oddly satisfying to attack myself so fiercely with the pain, because, when directly applied, it works like acid—tearing straight through my defenses, penetrating to the heart, completely wrecking it all. I'm left a pathetic mess, just barely managing to scrap together enough control to maintain a carefully cool exterior.

_I'm sorry._

I open my mouth to say it, say the words to the invisible presence that I can't help but foolishly hope is still lingering here somehow. But no sound comes out. I can't force a single one of the two words from my lips, no matter how hard I try. My throat is bone-dry.

I give it another minute or so, then give up and leave the graveyard.

I don't cry, because I never cry.

Tears are weak.

* * *

><p>There's no one left.<p>

That fact comes to me a couple of days later, dark, cobwebbed days that I've spent walking in a seemingly drugged stupor around Mycroft's house, looking in all the most shadowy corners, hiding there, pretending that I can't see his downward-turned, coldly disapproving gaze every time we cross paths—which is rarely, in a mansion the size of his. Hours of light and dark have merged into a single, continuous time stream, a blurred canvas of a million different watery shades of gray.

No one left to care.

Mycroft is the only one who knows I'm alive, and everyone else has surely moved on by now. At this point, my return would cause more distress than it would relief. They all would blame me for what he did, though no one can as much as I do myself. Lestrade wouldn't know what to do with himself. The shock Mrs. Hudson would receive couldn't be healthy for her age. And who else was there, really? The only other one I'd jumped for had been John.

And he was really all that I ever intended to return for.

If not for him, I'd have no reason to assume my normal life once more. I'd take on a different identity, become someone else, start up a new, safer existence that ensured Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson's safety from Moriarty's cohorts.

John was all that was dragging me back, and now he's gone.

His last words come to me then, those that he'd sent to me in the text message, suddenly too flamingly significant to be ignored.

_I love you._

_John, stop it. Don't do this to me. I know I deserve the pain, but I can't handle it anymore. I just can't handle it._

* * *

><p>Mycroft comes into my room a day later. I'm sitting up in bed, my knees drawn to my chest and my arms wrapped around them, gazing calmly ahead. I don't react to his thin figure approaching me, don't so much as flinch at the faint thud that sounds as he sets a small bottle on the bedside table. My eyes move, though, flicker down and bring it into focus—crystal clear glass behind which sits a single smoothly cylindrical, pearly white pill, speckled with vivid magenta. It's all too recognizable, and I can't help but wonder vaguely how he managed to procure this particular variant of poison, one which carries such a heavy memory with it. I slowly raise my head, meeting the shadowed eyes of my brother. He doesn't return my gaze, but rather stares at a point over my shoulder, his chin high as usual, arms stiff at his side. My fingers strike out, curl around the bottle, bring it closer to myself. It's warm against my icy fingers, sleek and almost slippery.<p>

There are so many things I could say. _Murder, really, Mycroft? Prompting your own brother to do such a thing, Mummy would be ashamed… angry, even… I hope you realize that this is all sorts of illegal…_

But only a single syllable comes out, my voice dry from disuse—I haven't spoken a word since the day John died. "Why?"

"I can't stand it any longer, Sherlock. Can't stand to see you like this. You've been dead ever since he jumped, you know you have. No use to wait until your body rots."

I stare at him for a few more seconds, wondering if he'll ever sum up the courage to look back at me. Thirty seconds tick by, a minute, two. He barely blinks.

"Thank you," I say simply, and remove the cap in one swift motion.

I can see the slight shift in his expression, conveying that he had some small hope that I wouldn't go for it—that I'd push the pill away, scoff, tell him that I'd recover eventually and that there was no need to waste my life. I'd act as though I'm sorry to disappoint him, but I'm not. Not in the least.

I give the bottle a small shake, tip its contents into the palm of my other hand and bring it up to my lips without hesitation. They brush against it, and I meet his eyes one final time, a thought suddenly occurring to me.

"I want to be buried in the fake grave," I tell him quietly. "The one next to him. I don't care how you do it, just make sure that we're beside each other."

"Of course, Sherlock."

I allow myself a tiny nod, a deep breath. There's no farther need for delay. Without giving myself time for any farther consideration, I slip the pill into my mouth and bite down.

* * *

><p><em>My brother, Sherlock Holmes, was a man admired by many. His death was devastating when the world first learned of it—what they didn't know, though, is that he hadn't truly been killed in his plunge of the rooftop. Far from it. In actuality, it had been a trick, a spectacularly elaborate trick used to save the lives of the three people in the world who he truly cared for. I was not on that list, nor would I ever expect to be. Sherlock meant much more to me than I ever did to him. I believe it was that way for most people who knew him.<em>

_The most important person in his life was undoubtedly Dr. John Watson. I never expected that much when I first met the man destined to be Sherlock's flat mate, but their bond ended up much stronger and deeper than I could have imagined._

_I didn't think Sherlock capable of love before John came along._

_It's only natural that he should be torn apart by the poor doctor's death, and suicide nonetheless. Never before have I seen my brother in such utter distress. And it's for that reason that I have no regret for my actions. When I gave him the means to end his own life, it was a purely sympathetic gesture, and I believe he appreciated it for that reason._

_The words that I sit here typing now will never be published, or even read by anyone other than myself. I was the only one to whom Sherlock entrusted with the secret of his faked suicide, and even now I don't intend to betray him. He was originally going to return after a period of three years, but that date is now meaningless. The affair has come to a close, and I will take the true story with me to the grave._


End file.
